SarahTurner

The Shanghai Composite Index
000001, -2.13%
sat 1.9% lower on the Chinese mainland in late afternoon trade, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index
HSI, +0.05%
was down a milder 0.3%.

“People are waiting for announcements from the National People’s Congress and U.S. economic data” for direction, said DBS Vickers director Peter Lai.

The National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, is currently holding its annual meeting, and Lai said that investors are focused on any sign of “concrete measures to boost the Chinese economy and stock market.”

On Tuesday, however, China’s banking regulator launched a probe of wealth-management products, with RBC Capital Markets strategist Sue Trinh saying Shanghai “was dragged down” by a drop in bank shares after the probe was announced.

In Japanese trading, the Nikkei Stock Average
NIK, -0.33%
ended with a 0.3% loss after rising 9.7% advance over the previous eight sessions.

Japanese stocks have gained 18.5% since the start of the year, helped by the prospect of further monetary easing as part of measures to lift the country out of deflation.

In part, the gain has come as government rhetoric and some moves by the Bank of Japan to deliver on that plan have weakened the yen dramatically over the past few months.

On Tuesday, the dollar
USDJPY, +0.02%
took its year-to-date gains against the yen to 11.2% by rising to ¥96.42, after briefly hitting a level last seen in August 2009.

The advance occurred after a Nikkei news report suggested Haruhiko Kuroda, the Bank of Japan governor-designate, may add fresh monetary-easing measures even before the central bank’s next meeting in April.

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